ONLY a month away from completing his quest to become the youngest sailor to circumnavigate the world, a teenager from Potters Bar was forced to climb the mast of his 50ft yacht in 28 knots of wind.

Still feeling sea-sick after setting out from Panama last Tuesday, 17-year-old Mike Perham made the dangerous manoeuvre to fix a broken lazy jackstay - a rope running from the mast to the end of the boom.

Mike wrote in his blog yesterday: "The wind had built to a nice 18-19 knots during the night, so I put a reef in for good measure.

"I'm not quite sure how it happened, but as I was putting the reef in, one of the lazy jacks snapped and managed to wrap itself around one of the cars attached to the mainsail.

"This meant I couldn't lower the sail, so a mast climb needed to be done, and soon!

"Going up wasn't so bad once I had got into the swing of things, but getting around the first spreader was really tough.

"I soon started to feel really sick and got light-headed. I lost count of the number of times I was smacked against the rig.

"Coming down was much harder than going up and took me twice as long. If it wasn't for my body padding, I would be covered in bruises and probably have a couple of cracked ribs for good measure.

"Getting down felt like an eternity."

Mike, from Oakroyd Avenue, left England on November 15, 2008, and has overcome storm-force winds, 50ft waves and constant problems with his boat's self-steering system, rudder bearings and electrics to make it this far.

He hopes to sail his Open 50 race yacht TotallyMoney.com into Portsmouth within four weeks to claim the record.